OS X Now macOS: 5 New Things To Expect, Plus Beta Release Date

As a part of its annual WWDC event in San Francisco, Apple finally announced the next version of its Macintosh operating system. OS X is now macOS, and this edition will be known as Sierra.

Apple has now ditched the “OS X” moniker for for a more simple macOS in line with company?s naming scheme of its other operating systems(OS, watchOS and tvOS). Also keeping in with their mountainous codenames, this latest version of macOS will be called Sierra presumably after the Sierra Nevada mountain range in California.

The all-new macOS will be bringing a whole bunch of features in the revised operating system but most of these are centered around convergence and/or interoperability with iOS.

The public beta of macOS 10.12 Sierra will be launched in July 2016 followed a fall 2016 general release.

Check out the all new features that new macOS brings:

Siri

The highlight feature addition for macOS Sierra is without doubt the Apple?s Siri personal assistant software. Siri on macOS version works identically to iOS version as you can bring up the personal assistant with ?Hey Siri? command.

Besides performing all the standard Siri functions including scheduling, app automation/activation, and searching, macOS Siri is far more flexible, as you’ll be able to image search online with Siri, and have the ability to drag and drop those images directly into a plethora of apps.

Universal Clipboard

One of the main points highlighted at WWDC 2016 was of continuity across all devices, and with Universal Clipboard you can now copy a text or image on your iPhone and directly paste it on your Mac.

Copying and pasting works automatically between an iOS device and a desktop Mac device. This appears to be a bidirectional service; you can copy an item to your iOS clipboard and see it on the desktop, and vice versa.

iCloud Drive and Optimized Storage

If you use multiple macOS machines, Apple will now sync your desktops between them, too.?This means you can also upload your Mac desktop to iCloud, and then access it from other Apple devices.

Another new feature called Optimized Storage which provides smarter storage-saving methods with auto-upload of old files to the cloud.

You can sweep through old files and push them to iCloud, clearing up local disk space for other uses. It also can automatically dump your trash, clear your Web history, and do other behind-the-scenes sweeps.

Apple Pay

A further excellent feature coming to macOS Sierra is Apple Pay for Mac. Apple Pay will be usable from desktop browsers, using TouchID or an Apple Watch to authenticate via Continuity.

Apple Pay icons will now appear on the buy pages of certain merchants. All you need to do is verify your purchases with Touch ID on your iPhone or using your Apple Watch. There are also rumors that Apple will finally add TouchID to its Mac range.

Auto Unlock

Another cool new feature is Auto Unlock which allows users to ?automatically unlock your Mac when your iPhone or Apple Watch is close to it.

More features of macOS ?10.12 Seirra will unveiled as Apple is?starting the seed program for it today, while it plans to kick public beta in July ahead of a full public release this fall.

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